Wordless Wednesday: a series of tubes

Austin art

In and around the joyous wedding festivities in Austin (congratulations, Trally!) I got to experience some great public art. This lovely jack-o-lantern, carved by the mother of the groom (who did a bang-up job on all the decorations, much better than the mother of the bride would have been able to come up with, should it have been left to me!) wasn't exactly public, but it's so cute I had to lead off with it.

Here's some of the other cool stuff we saw around A-town and the UT campus. First up, I know I've shown you this amazing "too many boats" sculpture that's near Sally's office before, but I don't think my previous shots have included the iconic Texas tower as well:

Also not far from her building (which is a work of art in itself) is a breathtaking new installation, on top of an also new student center. This link gives more information about it, and some pictures that show the whole thing, but I also want to share my more impressionistic glimpses:

the cylinder from outside

a welcome oval of blue after many days of rainy weather; this was taken inside

More campus art, that I have also noted before, is this handsome bronze outside of the Texas Memorial Museum...

...of course made even more beautiful with the addition of these lovely ladies, busy admiring it:

We also had fun sampling some local art not yet on normal public display, at the East Austin Studio Tour. Here are some samples:

this metal sculpture was one of my favorite items

that's hundreds, if not thousands, of rolls of newspaper!

this whimsical offering is titled "Deep Eddy Pool Centennial"

And finally, after a yummy dinner downtown, we took in a series of installations along Waller Creek. We particularly liked the "Creek Zipper," and took several photos of the lights and their reflections in the water:

More reflections cast by this bright arch near our restaurant:

And this was one of the most popular spots along the creek, not surprisingly, eh?

As impressive as all this art is, there's even more, and with an even more Austin-like twist, coming up next time.

I'll close today with another shoutout to the bride and groom; thanks for throwing such a fun party in such an interesting city!

Wordless Wednesday: One-stop Shop

Waterways

I've been remiss about blogging lately, I know.

But between the hectic (although generally pretty laid-back) schedule involved with our daughter's wedding and concomitant wonderful times spent with wonderful visiting family, then feeling just a little depressed about current events, the creative juices are flowing a bit sluggishly at present.

I do have lots to show you from what was mostly a wonderful week in Austin, but I'm going to start slow.

With a brief call-back to an earlier post from Maine, about mucking out storm drains. Remember? The first picture in that post showed some newly painted warnings about dumping into the drains, in order to guard the water quality of Casco Bay.

I remembered that cute little lobster, and his/her important message, so some similar sights along some creeks where we took strolls in Austin caught my eye.

along Waller Creek, on the UT campus

along Shoal Creek

I have some other interesting photos, and good stories, to share with you from both of these walks. Because, of course, Austin, is a very interesting place. And I will get to blogging about them soon.

As well as about some outings closer to home, where I saw this related message:

Thanks for your patience!

Wordless Wednesday: little boy who still likes to play with blocks

Wordless Wednesday: House of Endearment

What regular rainfall will do

Driving 200 miles east in some parts of the country and you'd have crossed several state lines. Here, you're still well under the Lone Star, but you have crossed over into a completely different climatic zone. (Actually, as you can see from this natural regions map, you don't have to go very far from San Antonio in almost any direction, and you're in a different zone.)

Houston, our weekend destination a while ago, is definitely in another world as far as biomass is concerned. And there wasn't a better example than the gorgeous pinetree in our generous hosts front yard.

I couldn't get it all in one picture, but the top half is above and here's the bottom...

...and its very handsome crown...

Trees just don't get anywhere near that tall around here.

We had a nice walk around their attractive neighborhood and saw several more examples of Mother Nature's largess. Here was a particularly huge live oak that caught our eye:

Isn't that stunning?!

We didn't do much more sightseeing (the main reason for the visit was a reunion for my Rice graduation class—I'm vain enough to want to withhold the number, but suffice to say it was a large one). But I'll show you what we saw on another stroll next time.